


As the Petals Fall

by Jevil_Joss



Series: Stories of Remnants [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Parallel Dimension, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 11:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18135401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jevil_Joss/pseuds/Jevil_Joss
Summary: A hundred years, more dimensions, only one enemy that matters.





	As the Petals Fall

Sylvia stood on top of a skyscraper, her glaive, Crescent Singer, strung over her shoulder. 

It was a large city, by the looks. And a weird one. She idly noted the flying whale carrying a building as it floated through the sky.

Inter-dimensional travel got weird sometimes. 

She jumped off the building, landing lithely on the ground after a minute. Standing up straight, she put her hands in her pockets and started walking. 

“Whoa,” a voice came from behind. “How did you  _ do  _ that?”

_ **** _ , she thought. She turned around to see what looked like an officer. “Wait, you look...exactly like me? How…?”

Sylvia sighed. “What’s your name?”

“Um, Ruby. Ruby Rose.”

“Name’s Sylvia. I travel through dimensions. Running into parallel versions of myself is nothing new to me.”

“Travel through…” She blinked. “Oh. Like that criminal that’s recently been sighted.”

Sylvia paused. “What?”

“Oh, I’m, uh, a cop. Some interdi-whatsit’s criminal’s been sighted--what was the name? Rosetta, I thought?”

_ ****. Triple ****.  _ “Rosetta, then?”

“Er, do you know her?”

A flash, a spray of blood, a body…

She shut out the images, like she had for years now. Almost a century now, right?

Or...was it a century? How old was she, exactly?

“A bit of advice. If you see her, hide.”

“Pardon?”

“She would kill you within seconds. You wouldn’t even be able to escape her.”

She turned and started walking. 

Ruby ran up to her. “She can’t be that dangerous. Officer Glynda would have mentioned that if she was that powerful and scary.”

“She hasn’t seen Rosetta in action.”

“But--”

“Dimensions make timelines go crazy. I’m over a hundred.”  _ Probably _ . “I don’t know how much this can extend your life by. But its a big number. Rosetta? She’s  _ ancient _ . She’s way older than I am. She knows more tactics than I know--” She paused. Ahead, by a building, was a body. She raced ahead, pulling out her glaive. The body was slumped against a wall, and blood had been sprayed up a good fifteen feet against that wall. 

“Good effing God,” Ruby swore. “How the **** did she do that?”

“My point exactly,” Sylvia said. 

“Which is why I need to stop her.” Ruby put away a gun-- _ when did she pull that out _ ? “If she’s this dangerous--” She paused. “My mom, when I was young, attacked by a serial killer. I saw him...stab her...before my eyes…” She looked at the dead woman. “I don’t want anyone else to run into that.”

_ Stab her...before my eyes… _

For the first time in a century, Sylvia panicked. She ran, up the side of a building, slamming her back into a chimney as silver petals floated around her. 

_ “Aw, are you crying?” _

“Shut up,” she said, putting her hands over her ears to shut out the memories. 

_ “Don’t worry...I can fix that too…” _

“I said shut up!”

_ You want to meet her again, don’t you? _

Sylvia looked up...straight at Rosetta. Pale skin, red hood, black jeans. White hair, network of red scars over her face. And sheathed sword at her side. 

_ Don’t worry--I can fix that too…I’ll send you to meet your mother...heh heh ha ha… _

The hallucination puffed away as a glowing bolt of energy went through it, hitting the building on the opposite side of the street. Her glaive had turned into a crossbow. She hadn’t even consciously done it. 

She was hallucinating now. 

_ **** _ . 

She was broken. How could she possibly stop Rosetta like this?

_ “Too many worlds...too, too, too many worlds…” _

She was going insane. 

  
Rosetta was a crazy, murderous, psychopath, and would have killed anyone who said otherwise. Or, anyone who said it, actually. 

Course, if she really thought about it, she kinda killed everyone she met, didn’t she?

She hopped down off the side of a skyscraper, bouncing slightly off her feet as she hit the ground. Humming a familiar tune(though she couldn’t remember where she’d heard it, which really said some things she’d prefer not to think about), she strolled down a street where she saw a man standing with a woman. 

_ Aww, now that’s cute. _

She impaled them both. 

Moving with a red afterimage behind her, she withdrew her sword, shaking the blood off it. The blood splattered across the road. The couple fell dead(at least, she thought they were a couple) to the ground. 

Then she dodged a bullet that whizzed right past her head. She turned around and saw a girl--most likely named Ruby Rose, unless she was randomly named something different in this dimension--in a cop outfit. 

“Playing cop, are you?” Rosetta asked. 

“You’re Rosetta, right? The posters show your sword--”  _ In color? _ “--and your scars.”  _ Creepy. Then again, am I really one to judge? _

“You’re not even listening to me, are you?”

“No, to be honest. Sorry, hon, I’ve just heard to many people give me that talk.”

“Well, I’m gonna--”

Rosetta activated her power. Trailing a red afterimage she casually walked the thirty feet to Ruby--yeah, it was a Ruby--at least, if the name tag was accurate, and stabbed her in the stomach. Or,  she tried anyway. Her sword--Godslayer, if the text on the hilt was accurate--met unexpected resistance in the form of a halberd. 

Rosetta jumped back, slicing back at Sylvia. Sylvia could have dodged, but then, the sword would--probably--have hit Ruby. And Sylvia--this one, anyway--wasn’t like that. She got a slash to the shoulder as she shoved Ruby out of the way. 

“Aw, you again? I’d find you stalking me creepy, but I’ve recently been rethinking my right to think people creepy. I think. Hey, I wonder if they have Halloween in this dimension?”

“Get out of here, Ruby,” Sylvia said. “She can basically freeze time around her. There’s nothing you can do against her.”

“It’s more complicated than that, obviously, because you can move when I do it. I wonder why?”

Sylvia rose, pulling out her scythe. Ready for a hero’s death. Like always.

When you were mortal, why would you...throw your life away for others...when you only had one?

Without a second thought, she slashed through the air with Godslayer, opening a portal and walking through it. 

  
“Oh my God, are you alright?” Ruby asked. 

_ No.  _ “Yes.”

“You’re shoulder--”

“Normally, that wouldn’t have even hurt, but her sword...isn’t normal.” She rose, then flinched, her Aura flickering around her. “Yeah. She’s gone now.”

Ruby spluttered, looking like she was about to say something. Then, “Stay at my place while you heal.”

“Eh?”

“If you do travel between dimensions, then you don’t have a place to stay, right? So stay at my house for...a...bit…”

Sylvia thought for a minute.  _ Why did I say that?  _ Ruby thought to herself.  _ Course she’s not gonna _ \--

“That...sounds like fun.”


End file.
